COMMUNICATIONS.

The Severn was early
the county's main artery of trade, (fn. 1) on which
barges and the larger trows were in use by the
early 15th century. (fn. 2) By the earlier 17th century
there was a community of barge and trow men
settled in the Severn Gorge (fn. 3) whence, from riverside wharves, (fn. 4) coal became the staple trade up to
Shrewsbury and down to Bristol. (fn. 5) In 1772, partly
to put an end to the degrading work of the gangs
of bow-haulers, Richard Reynolds began to urge
the making of a horse tow path. There was one
from Coalbrookdale to Bewdley by c. 1800; William Reynolds made the stretch through his
father's property in Madeley Wood and the
Lloyds. A horse path up river to Shrewsbury was
made in 1809. (fn. 6)

The Coalbrookdale Co. owned a small river
fleet briefly c. 1800, but other industrialists never
tried to integrate river transport into their operations. Further improvement of the river in the
19th century was resisted by barge owners supported by W. R. Anstice and many of the parish's
industrialists. Nevertheless competition from the
railways, in which the Coalbrookdale Co. was also
involved, caused the river trade to decline sharply
in the mid 19th century, and it was virtually
extinct by the 1880s. (fn. 7)

Before 1780 the Severn was not bridged be
tween Buildwas and Bridgnorth, coracles and
ferries serving instead. The making and use of
coracles in Madeley, continuing in the early
1980s, was probably of long standing (fn. 8) when
observed in the mid 17th century. (fn. 9) About 1780
there were several regular ferries in the Severn
Gorge. (fn. 10)

Madeley 1849

Two principal roads crossed the parish from
early times and were turnpiked under an Act of
1764. (fn. 11) The road from Worcester via Bridgnorth
to Wellington, bypassing Madeley to the east, was
unimportant for communications within the parish. The Shifnal to Much Wenlock road, however, crossed the parish from east to west and lanes
led out of it. Presumably one ran south to the
Green and Madeley Wood. (fn. 12) From the two southward loops forming the streets of Madeley town (fn. 13)
lanes went south to the Lloyds (Dabley Lane) (fn. 14)
and, from near Cottage Farm, past Bowdler's mill
to the farm's land, the Hay, and Sutton wood. (fn. 15)
On the north were lanes giving access to parts of
the open fields adjoining the manorial demesne
and leading to Madeley Court, (fn. 16) and Park Lane
led around Rough Park to Lightmoor.

Though there was apparently no public road
along Coalbrookdale until the later 18th century,
when one was made beside the railway, from the
17th century the ironworks used the dale as a
route to the Wharfage at Loadcroft. The earliest
route between Madeley and Coalbrookdale was a
bridle road (probably the later Church Road) over
Lincoln Hill, (fn. 17) probably adopted by the parish c.
1854. (fn. 18) The later Station Road, along the western
slopes of the dale to Sunniside, was still private in
1849 (fn. 19) and the later Coach Road, leading out of it
north to Upper furnace pool, (fn. 20) was presumably
built alongside the railway in 1864. (fn. 21)

In 1724 the parish roads were said to be 'in
indifferent repair'. (fn. 22) The terrain limited improvement, and the turnpike road up Lincoln Hill was
notoriously steep. (fn. 23) In the later 18th century
byroads were often impassable, especially in bad
weather. (fn. 24)

Two Severn toll-bridges, opened 1780-1, modified the parish's road communications; (fn. 25) both
were financed by local industrialists, especially
the ironmasters. (fn. 26) The wooden Preen's Eddy (later Coalport) bridge was opened between Sutton
Maddock and Broseley parishes in 1780, its
proprietors having power to build connecting
roads. (fn. 27) One from the Wenlock turnpike in
Broseley was completed to the Worcester-Wellington road (fn. 28) soon after the failure of a Madeley
road Bill (fn. 29) in 1797. (fn. 30) Though the bridge and the
new road lay just outside the parish, both were
important for William Reynolds's development of
Coalport in the 1790s; (fn. 31) Reynolds was probably
the moving spirit behind the building of the
road. (fn. 32) Coalport bridge was rebuilt in iron in 1799
and 1818 (fn. 33) and became a county bridge in 1922. (fn. 34)
The Coalport-Ironbridge road through the
Lloyds was private property in 1849 (fn. 35) and at least
part remained unadopted in 1909 (fn. 36) and later. (fn. 37) In
1909 the ferro-concrete Haynes Memorial (or
Free) bridge was built across the Severn near the
Lloyds Gate. (fn. 38) In 1922 a war-memorial footbridge
was built from Coalport to the Tuckies, replacing
Coalport ferry closed in 1912. (fn. 39)

The building of the Iron Bridge 1777-80
caused the Madeley turnpike trustees to provide a
route to it from near the top of Lincoln Hill, first
by improvement of an existing lane (the later
Ironbridge High Street) then by a sharp turn
uphill into a 'new road' (the later Church Hill).
From 1782 the owners of Loadcroft wharf allowed
the use of the Wharfage as a road to the bridge
from the bottom of Lincoln Hill. Better connexions between the bridge and the turnpike were
made under an Act of 1806 renewing the Madeley
trust for the second time: the Wharfage was
turnpiked, though wharfingers kept their right to
stack on it, and by 1810 the road eventually
known as Madeley Hill had been constructed
from Ironbridge High Street to the turnpike road
near Hill Top. The Iron Bridge was closed to
traffic in 1934, and in 1950 the proprietors conveyed it to the county council. (fn. 40)

The road from the Shifnal to Much Wenlock
road at Dale End up Coalbrookdale to Wellington
was turnpiked c. 1817. (fn. 41)

The new town development corporation greatly
modified the road pattern by building three large
housing estates 1966-75, each with a perimeter
road. Woodside estate cut Park Lane, and its
perimeter road became the Madeley-Lightmoor
route. Central Madeley was bypassed to the north
by Parkway (built 1967-8) and to the east by a
link road (opened 1979) from Madeley roundabout to Coalport Road at Blists Hill. (fn. 42) In the
1970s the Madeley section of the BridgnorthWellington road lost importance to two new roads.
Brockton Way, opened 1971, connected Queensway (the new town's 'eastern primary road') to
the old Bridgnorth-Wellington road in Sutton
Maddock parish. Castlefields Way, opened 1978,
ran north from Parkway to Southall, in Dawley.
In 1980 the two roads were connected by the new
town's 'southern district road', a new Dawley-
Bridgnorth link across the north-east part of
Madeley parish; Bridgnorth Road then became a
cul-de-sac. (fn. 43)

Despite some road improvements in the Severn
Gorge by the early 1980s traffic there was becoming heavier and more congested (fn. 44) and there were
plans (fn. 45) for a new relief road.

The earliest rail or waggon ways in the parish
led out of the coalmine adits in Madeley Wood
down to the Severn. (fn. 46) One, almost a mile long,
was laid from the Lane pit in 1692. Another, from
a pit in Lloyds dingle or 'gutter', had a 'wind' and
chain to let coal and ironstone waggons down the
steep hillside; tenants of mines north of the
Wenlock road were allowed to use it in 1706. (fn. 47)
The Coalbrookdale Co. built a railway at Lake
Head in 1748, and by 1758 three railways from
coal and ironstone pits converged on the Madeley
Wood ironworks. (fn. 48) Tramways were laid in a sandstone adit mine at Madeley Wood and an early
19th-century ironstone mine in Ironbridge; from
the latter an inclined plane ran down to the
Severn. (fn. 49) In 1786 William Reynolds began a
technically more ambitious route in the riverside
meadows soon to be developed as Coalport: the
Tar Tunnel, said to have been projected as an
underground canal, was driven c. 1,000 yards into
the side of the Severn Gorge to reach pits at Blists
Hill c. 150 ft. below ground. In the event rails
were laid to bring out the coal. Employed for
mine drainage and ventilation, the tunnel was
used in connexion with local mines until the
1930s. (fn. 50) A tunnel built in Ironbridge in 1800,
probably another of Reynolds's, carried a tramway from Lincoln Hill limeworks to Bedlam
furnaces. (fn. 51)

Until the 1850s exports from the coalfield were
routed south through Madeley parish to the
Severn. Early wharves, served by wooden railways, were in the western part of the parish
between Strethill Farm and Dale End. The railways were important to the Coalbrookdale Co.
and from 1767 Richard Reynolds introduced iron
rails, the first in the country; by 1785 the company had over 20 miles of iron railways. In the
1790s a new canal shifted through traffic to
Coalport in the eastern part of the parish. (fn. 52)

In 1728 William Forester and William Hayward
had a railway built from Little Wenlock to take
their coal and ironstone to Meadow wharf; (fn. 53) by
1732 they had had a 'wind' built, and the lessee
had to keep it and the railway bridges in repair. (fn. 54)
In 1750 the Coalbrookdale Co. laid a two-mile
line from Forester's mines at Coalmoor to their
Coalbrookdale furnaces, (fn. 55) a new or additional line
perhaps being laid c. 1776. (fn. 56) Probably in the 1750s
rails down the dale gave access to the Severn. (fn. 57) In
1755 a new company line from Horsehay probably
joined the line of 1750 near Stoney Hill; connexions from Horsehay were made to Lawley, Ketley, and (by 1788) Donnington Wood. From
1794, however, Horsehay-Coalbrookdale traffic
was by canal from Horsehay to Brierly Hill;
thence, from the foot of an inclined plane, a new
railway ran along Lincoln Hill and down to the
Severn by an inclined plane near Lower forge. In
the 1820s the railway was replaced by a third
Horsehay-Coalbrookdale line which ran down
Lightmoor dingle. (fn. 58)

A branch of the Shropshire Canal built through
the eastern part of the parish 1789-92, with
inclined planes at Windmill farm and the Hay,
connected most parts of the coalfield to the
Severn, and it survived the competition of a
private railway (c. 1799-1815) to the east. (fn. 59) Tramways converged on the canal at Blists Hill: one
from Bedlam furnaces and the Lloyds pit, another
from Meadow pit (fn. 60) via an inclined plane (replaced
by a bridge c. 1861) north of Lee dingle. There
was a short spur to the Shaws pits. Further north
tramways were built from Madeley Court pits and
ironworks to the Tweedale basin near the bottom
of the Windmill farm incline, and from the Hales
pits. (fn. 61) The canal was taken over by the L.N.W.R.
in 1857 and closed north of Tweedale basin in 1858.
It served mines and works in the parish but fell into
disuse after 1894, closed in 1907, (fn. 62) and remained
an unsightly nuisance until filled c. 1944. (fn. 63)

The Madeley branch of the G.W.R., opened in
1854, had a station near Madeley Court and
terminated at Lightmoor. (fn. 64) About 1858 the Coalbrookdale Co.'s Wellington & Severn Junction
Railway, later part of the G.W.R., reached Lightmoor from the north; only in 1864, however, did
the G.W.R.'s Wenlock Railway, crossing the
Severn by the Albert Edward bridge, (fn. 65) make the
long-planned extension through Coalbrookdale,
where there was a station, to Lightmoor Junction,
whose passenger service then ceased. The sparse
passenger services on the Madeley branch ceased
in 1915. (fn. 66) From 1964, save for a temporary revival
of passenger traffic for the Iron Bridge bicentenary in the summer of 1979, (fn. 67) the Madeley branch
and the line of 1864 linking it south to Buildwas
were used only by coal trains to Ironbridge 'B'
power station. Halts at Lightmoor, opened as
Lightmoor Platform 1907, and Coalbrookdale had
lost their passenger services in 1962.

The Coalport Branch Railway, later part of the
L.N.W.R., opened through the eastern part of
the parish in 1860, had a station called Madeley
Market in the low town, and terminated at Coalport East station. Both stations closed for passengers in 1952 and entirely in 1960. (fn. 68)

The Severn Valley Railway, later part of the
G.W.R., opened in 1862 and, though not entering
the parish, served it with two stations, one called
Ironbridge and Broseley, in Benthall, and one
called Coalport West, in Broseley. Both stations
closed in 1963 and the line in 1970. (fn. 69)